


You are the Protagonist

by yosjiefo



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Metafiction, Other, POV Second Person, Pining, adding tags as i go but
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 13:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12705516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yosjiefo/pseuds/yosjiefo
Summary: [ MAJOR NDRV3 SPOILERS INCLUDING ENDGAME SPOILERS ]Your name is Tetsuya and you finally feel an ounce of control in your life, an ounce of real hope and despair beyond just the stifling drivel that is your sad excuse of a high school life, when a woman announces to you that you are now known to fifteen other teenagers as K1-B0, the Ultimate Robot.





	You are the Protagonist

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be straight up spoiling literally all of NDRV3 with the entire fic, so if you have not finished it, don't read this. There is not a single part of my work that will not reference some kind of spoiler.
> 
> Follows NDRV3's plotline chronologically.

"Please stop! Don't come any closer!" K1-B0 screams it loudly, enough to catch the attention of not just the youth chasing him but also the pair that had just entered the classroom. His voice is shrill as he pleas with desperation dripping from his voice-- desperation that goes unheard, perhaps actually moreso ignored, by the stranger that had been chasing him for quite some time now.

He's not you.

Neither is the young boy who's laughing with a sparkle in his eyes, gathering some sense of child-like wonder from this game of chase and curiosity. Neither is the girl who cries out "What? A robot!?" with the musical accents on her attire screaming out the single drive that has propelled her to this school for gifted inmates. Neither is the boy who refuses to look anyone in the eyes, hiding behind the brim of his cap and tailing awkwardly behind the aforementioned girl.

None of these people are you.

You're Tetsuya, a completely normal high school aged boy. You're one of many, and you find it a miracle that you got into the high school that you did. Your parents had hounded you to work hard on the entrance exams and because of your sense of obedience, you find yourself without friends. All of them had enrolled into different academies than you, so you must now start from square one.

It's okay though, you reason to yourself. You have friends online. People in this day and age do this all the time. You still communicate a little over LINE but for the most part you find yourself discussing on forums mostly. How easy is it to bond with others when all you have to do is lay out all your interests and see who points and shouts and hollers, "I like that too!" in just a few mere minutes?

Or maybe they don't even do that. Maybe all they do is like a tweet you made, but boy that single heart is enough to make you feel validated and certainly not alone.

It's easier to make friends online, you believe, because at school you barely have the time. You find yourself focused on your studies and staying quiet while in class because you know it's rude to interrupt and you cannot be rude. It's not worth it. You can't be the odd one out.

This isn't a TV show.

Your life is a bit of a paradox: you don't make friends at school because you focus on your studies at school, but you focus on studies at school because you're too preoccupied at home talking to your friends online. It's hard to find the time to study when you're supposed to when everyone's so excited.

It's the 53rd season of your favorite series after all.

Team Danganronpa had announced online that they were going to try out something new this season. With a series that's run this long, you're not surprised too much by the initial teaser-- they had done that last season too. You note Rantaro Amami's return as a character, recognizing him as the Ultimate Adventurer from the previous mutual killing game.

( _So that's what it meant when one is to be sacrificed._ )

You wonder if his peer was going to be showing up in the next game? Still, you watch as K1-B0 talks amiably with him. Rantaro doesn't seem too fazed at all by Keebo: the surprised light in the adventurer's eyes had quickly disappeared to something more relaxed-- something more him.

You know the gears in his mind are working. He introduces himself as a lax guy that simply doesn't remember what his talent is and you have no idea if what he's saying is truth or lies. There's almost always an amnesiac, especially after the popularity of Kyoko Kirigiri and Hajime Hinata, but it's uncertain.

Rantaro always looked out for others, so if he is lying, you know it is a deliberate decision on his part-- you're certain he's doing this for the sake of others. It's that character trait of his that put him in this mess again after all.

You look at the chat and see it's pretty divided. Some are really happy to see their favorite character again; others are disappointed. That's the deal with survivors: some either love them to death or don't care. Rantaro hadn't been anything extremely noteworthy last game either ( at least in your opinion ) until the very final trial. It was his compassion that had driven him to volunteer once the last mastermind had cried out their ultimatum: to execute the mastermind, two students must be sacrificed to let the other two live with hope. Otherwise, they all would have stayed together peacefully but alone.

( _That didn't sound too bad, truth be told..._ )

Maybe he'll be something more this game. Still, even as that thought stirs within you, a part of you feels as if it is at an impasse.

「 Maybe we should focus on other characters first and see what they're like, guys, 」 you suggest, typing it out in the chat.

「 but amami-kun is here!! 」

「 wwwwww cant believe cabbage man is back.... 」

「 If we're the protag we have to meet everyone don't we??? 」

You feel grateful someone else is saying something reasonable, and you type in a reply:

「 Yeah... 」

It seems like that's enough to get the hundreds of voices to create a compromise. The chat moves so fast it's like a blur, but you've learned to keep up with it.

You know that if Team Danganronpa is trusting the online community, the fanbase, to be the 53rd protagonist, you all have to do your part.

You are all K1-B0, or rather affectionately self-nicknamed 'Keebo.' You are all collectively the hope that will save a handful of people from death. You are all the Ultimate Robot, wearing an ahoge as proof of the status that the creative team has handed down upon you all.

You are the protagonist.


End file.
